


Bonds and Wrigglers

by BL4R1233



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Karezi Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-23
Updated: 2013-10-23
Packaged: 2017-12-30 07:33:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1015867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BL4R1233/pseuds/BL4R1233
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karkat stumbles across the lab that will create all of themselves as wrigglers, and is caught with an overwhelming desire that may destroy them all...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bonds and Wrigglers

**Author's Note:**

> This took me about 30 minutes to make...enjoy the feels my friends!

\---[carcinoGenetisist began trolling terminallyCaparicious]---  
[CG]: OKAY, SO I THINK I FINALLY FIGURED OUT HOW TO RUN THIS SHIT-HEAP OF A CONTROL STATION. IT APPEARS TO BE SOME TYPE OF ECTO DEVICE, WITH THIS HUGE SCREEN THAT LOCKS ON TO DIFFERENT PEOPLE AT DIFFERENT TIMES. HALF OF WHICH INCLUDE US.   
[CG]: WHETHER OR NOT SHOULD ACTIVATE IT REMAINS A QUESTION.  
[TC]: I tHiNk It WoUlD bE a GrEaT  
[TC]: FrEaKiN tHiNg BrO. SeE wHaT mIrIcAlS a MaChInE bE uP tO HiDiNg.   
[TC]: LiKe, DaNg, WhAtS tHe WoRsT fReAkInG tHiNg ThAt CoUlD mOtHeR fReAkInG hApPeN, aM i RiGht?  
[CG]: ONCE AGAIN YOUR STAGGARING LOGIC IN ALL THINGS POTENTIALLY LIFE-THREATENING LEAVE ME WIDE-EYED AND WITH CONSIDERABLY LESS I.Q. I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHY I ASKED YOU. LIKE THE HIGH-AS-EVER-LOVING JEGUS CLOWN WOULD HAVE SOME PRFOUND WISDOM, SOME ADVICE EVEN, ON WHAT TO DO. I KNOW, MAYBE WE COULD THROW A PIE AT IT! THAT WOULD BE SOMETHING, HUH? JUST FRY THE SHIT, MAKE IT SIZZLE MIRICALS, LETS SEE WHAT HAPPENS THEN!!  
[TC]: HoLy CrAp BrO  
[TC]: WhAt A gReAt IdEa. TeLl mE hOw It GoEs, K kArBrO?  
[CG]: OH MY GOG.  
[TC]: HoNk. :o)  
\---[carcinoGenetisist ceased trolling terminallyCaparicious]---  
Karkat snorted with frustration and slammed the lid to his husktop. That damn clown. Sometimes he questioned why he even bothered talking him, the high bastard. Grumbling to himself, karkat looked back up at the array of buttons covering the vast expanse of metal the ecto lab’s surface provided. Of the spasmodic mess arose some legible letters and commands, including CLONE and EXTRACT.   
These controls were obvious enough and, combined with the fact that he could swap back and forth between different images of trolls, made the machine’s purpose painfully easy to see. Despite this being the case Karkat felt some hesitation towards the task currently at hand. What if he went and created a doomed timeline doing this? It sounded like something his dumbass self would do.  
“No, no, that wouldn’t happen…why else would the lab be so fucking easy to find?” he muttered. Oh well, here went nothing. With trembling hands the mutant troll locked on to the familiar grin of one Terezi Pyrope. The picture freeze framed on a point in history, one he was unfamiliar with. EXTRACT. A grueling slurping sound was made and to his far left an enormous tube was filled with a sopor-lke substance.  
“What the hell is that?” Karkat squinted over at the gigantic glass tube. On a bar below the tube glowed in teal letters: TEREZI PYROPE. Shrugging, he tapped the larger green button. CLONE. He nearly jumped when the machine whirred to life, buzzing and humming with the sounds of gears turning. The troll covered his sensitive ears until the buzzing stopped.  
“Damn, could that have BEEN any louder?”  
“Chirp.”  
Karkat spun around to meet the sound, lips drawn up in a snarl. What he saw almost made him fall over. It was a grub. A teeny, tiny, teal little grub that looked suspiciously like a mini Pyrope…and it clicked. He must have been the reason they were all here, and this…whatever it was, was spawned here to ensure he found it.  
“Wonderful, just wonderful…” He grumbled and turned back to the large screen. He was just about to lock on to Sollux when he felt a tug at the hem of his pantleg. Turning, he saw that the grub Terezi was pulling in a determined way on the coarse fabric, struggling to climb up.  
“Common, you,” Karkat let a rare grin creep onto his face as he stooped to pick her up. The grub growled a bit and looked about ready to bite—but Karkat held it up gently and stroked its underside.   
“ChiiiirrUP! Chirp chirp chirp!”   
“You like having your belly scratched, huh? Crabdad would only calm down if you gave the fool a scratch…”   
“Chirp chirp!” The little Terezi flipped upright and Karkat watched, amused, as it pulled its way up his arm and proceeded to curl up in a ball on the crook of his neck.  
He papped her head softly. “If only you liked me this way now…” Sighing, he brought his attention back to the screen and proceeded to clone the rest of the grubs, twenty-three in all…save for one. All the grubs were asleep after a good head-scratching, even the strange ones who Karkat had yet to fully realize just who they were. Terezi stayed snoring on his shoulder.  
One clawed hand hovered over the CLONE button. With some hesitation, he clicked it. The whirring sound started up again and he automatically covered his ears (How did the wrigglers SLEEP through this thing??) and waited until the horrible red light flashed on the tube, followed by the growling of the newly born grub.  
“SKREEEE!”  
“Shut the hell up,” he snapped noncommittally, scooping up the grub in a practiced way and quickly subduing it with an expert belly rub. In his hands rested his greatest fear, his greatest handicap, the killer of two universes; himself.  
Briefly the thought flashed through his mind to kill the infant here; he would be doing all of the universes-to-be a favor. He wouldn’t have to put up with himself, the constant self-loathing, hiding and hiding and hiding to conceal his blood color, (Now painting the grub’s exoskeleton) his failure—nothing.   
Karkat was jerked to reality when he realized the pained squealing of the grub. He had without noticing tightened his grip and was probably suffocating the thing. He blinked with surprise. But he didn’t let go. Its cry grew fainter and fainter the longer he held on, cutting off its source of oxygen.  
Already he could feel reality sagging at the seams, its defined shapes and lines fading with the dying wails of the wriggler. He himself was beginning to feel flimsy, fuzzy—in a few more moments this timeline would be no more.  
“Chirp!”   
Karkat looked down at the fading grub on his shoulder. Terezi looked up at him through yellow, orb like eyes and opened her mouth. “Chirp! Chirpchirpchirpchirpchirp!”   
And his grip released. The little Karkat wriggler sputtered and hissed weakly, but it was clear its abdomen was swelling and retracting with the pump of its respiratory system.  
“Fuck,” he whispered, horrified of what he was about to do, what he very well would of done, and pulled the wriggler close to his face. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” he said. It responded with a half-hearted chirp.   
Terezi grub silently crawled down the length of his arm and perched on the rim of his sleeve. She struggled a moment to sit upright, then leaned forward and papped Karkat grub on the head with a tiny black arm.  
“Shoop. Shoooooooop.”   
The male grub responded by pressing his face to her little arm and purring. Karkat was reduced to silence. How could he be so stupid? He did have something to live for, to work for. His friends. Terezi. He set the two down on the floor when a hallow banging sound echoed in the large room. Someone was knocking on the door.  
“Karkles, you in there? Unlock the door, are you okay? Did you feel that weird phase in…everything?” Terezi’s muffled voice leeks through the solid metal.  
“Shit, can’t let her smell little me…” he quickly placed the last two grubs on what he assumed was a high powered transpotilizer with the rest of the wrigglers. Terezi snuggled next to Karkat and the two fell asleep impossibly fast.  
“Bye little guys,” he mumbled, and hit the one other button he recognized, SEND. The troll could only hope it was what he supposed to hit, as he could hear Terezi fumbling with the lock on the other side of the door. Karkat took one last look at the many wrigglers piled atop one another and mashed the button. With a flash of green and a barely audible ‘chirp,’ the wrigglers were gone. In that instance Terezi finally managed to break through and stormed into the room, inhaling deeply.  
“Karkles? Why didn’t you answer me? I thought you were dead or some—hey!” she was cut off when Karkat swept her up in a embrace and nuzzled her neck. The taller troll scooped her off her feet and twirled her in the air before setting her down again.  
“Sorry, Terezi. Won’t happen again,” he gave her a small smile. At first she was too dumbfounded to smile. What the hell had him in such a good mood?  
“Uh, um, okay. It better not,” she finally managed. Then she broke out in a trademark grin, “But being spun off my feet can happen again. Any time.”  
“Later, okay?” he answered, grabbing her hand and leading her out of the lab, “Now let’s get back to the others, I’m sure they were scared shitless, the bunch of wrigglers.”


End file.
